Educated Deputies

Published:PravdaNo. 83, April 10, 1913.

      Signed:B..

      Published according to thePravdatext.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1977,

      Moscow,Volume 19,

      page52.Translated:The Late George HannaTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.

Atthe evening sitting on April 2, the Octobrist
L. G. Lyuts said, when objecting to the working-class deputies’ demand for
a discussion of the question asked about the Lena
events[1]:

“Twodays from now will be the anniversary of the events
   on the Lena. Apparently the Social-Democrats are trying tobudirovatthe feelings of the workers in order to encourage
   excesses....”

“Twodays from now will be the anniversary of the events
   on the Lena. Apparently the Social-Democrats are trying tobudirovatthe feelings of the workers in order to encourage
   excesses....”

TheFrench wordbouder, rendered in Russian bybudirovatmeansto sulk,to pout. Mr. Lyuts,
apparently, derivesbudirovatfrombudorazhit(excite)
or, perhaps,vozbudit(in cite). How the bourgeois deputies and
the bourgeois press laughed when a peasant in the First Duma used the
foreign word “prerogatives” in the sense of barriers
(“rogatki” in Russ.—Ed.)! The mistake was all the more
pardonable since various prerogatives enjoyed by the ruling classes are
actually barriers in Russian life. Mr. Lyuts’ educational attainments,
however, did not “vozbudirovat” the laughter of his educated
friends or their press.

[1]Thereference is to the shooting of unarmed workers in the Lena
Goldfields (Siberia) on April 4 (17), 1912.

Newsof the bloody drama in the Lena Goldfields aroused the wrath of
the working class throughout Russia; there were street demonstrations,
meetings and protest strikes all over the country. The Social-Democratic
Duma group submitted a question to the tsarist government on the Lena
shootings. The insolent answer given by the Tsar’s Minister Makarov: “So
it has been, and so it will be in the future” served to increase the
indignation of the workers. Up to 300,000 workers took part in strikes of
protest against the Lena shootings. The strikes merged with the May Day
strikes in which 400,000 workers took part.